JPS6041748B2 - electronic clock - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an electronic timepiece that can generate a melody taking into account the pitch, intensity, and beat of the sound.

Conventional clocks with melody generation functions have been built with mechanical music boxes, etc., but it is difficult to miniaturize such functions and incorporate them into electronic watches due to the principle of sound production. It's difficult.

Furthermore, even if a system uses a magnetic material and a magnetic head, it is difficult to fit it into the space of a timepiece, which is usually called an electronic timepiece, due to the number of components and other factors. That is, in order to provide an electronic timepiece, especially a wristwatch, having such a function, the melody generation function must be miniaturized.
The present invention is realized by incorporating an electronic circuit for generating a melody and a sounding body into an electronic clock. The electronic circuit section can be easily integrated into an IC, and if it is integrated into a single chip IC together with the circuit of the watch section, the space can be extremely small, and it can also be incorporated into a wristwatch case. A simple melody, for example, is a C major scale, and can be expressed by the intensity and length of monotonous notes. However, in order to create a more musical expression, it is necessary to take into account not only the pitch but also the strength and weakness of the sound, rhythm, etc. From this perspective, the present invention provides an electronic timepiece that incorporates the above elements and has a melody generation function. Among the elements that make up a melody, the pitch of the sound is determined by the oscillation frequency, and the strength of the sound is determined by the amplitude, that is, the output voltage of the sounding body drive circuit. Furthermore, rhythm can be controlled by controlling the length of sounds or the interval between sounds. One embodiment of melody generation according to the present invention will be explained with reference to a block diagram shown in FIG. The semiconductor storage device 1 stores the pitches of the tones of the melody, the strength of the tones, the lengths of tones, and the intervals between tones as coded numerical values. When a command to generate a melody is issued from the control section 10, the contents stored in the semiconductor storage device 1 are read out by the data reading section 2, and the pitch/low, strength/weakness, length and length of the notes are read out. The data on the interval to the next note is provided by the control voltage generator 3, drive voltage controller 6, and
The signal is input to the driving time signal generating section 5 and the start pulse generating section 4. The output of the control voltage generator 3 is input to the voltage controlled oscillator 7, which outputs a signal with a frequency necessary to express a predetermined pitch of sound. The signal is input to the AND gate 8, and the AND gate 8 is opened and closed by the signal from the drive time signal generator 5 according to the sound length data stored in the storage device 1 to control the sound length. . Next, the output of the AND gate 8 is inputted to the sounding body driving section 9. The intensity of the sound is also controlled in this circuit section by a signal from the drive voltage control section 6. The sounding body driving section 9 is connected to the sounding body 11 and generates a melody. Voltage control transmitter 7
The control voltage generating section 3 that generates the control voltage supplied to the memory device 1 is realized, for example, by a simple /A converter, and generates a control voltage that is an analog signal from the digital signal of the storage device 1.

The voltage controlled oscillation section is constructed of a so-called VCO or the like, and is configured such that its oscillation frequency is changed by the control voltage of the control voltage generation section 3. Regarding the memory, it is appropriate to use a so-called mask ROM in order to be able to provide several types of clocks that can generate different melodies. There are electronic watches that are configured to emit a simple buzzer sound, but according to the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to reduce the cost by installing an electronic circuit that can be integrated into an IC and an ultra-small sounding body. Therefore, it is possible to provide an electronic clock having a melody generation function easily and easily. As mentioned above, the most important feature of the present invention is that the melody generation function is completely electronic, making it solid-state, realizing ultra-miniaturization, and allowing the clock function of the electronic watch to be carried out within the limited volume of the electronic watch. Another point is that it has made it possible to incorporate a melody generation function.

From this point of view, the present invention further expands the scope of multifunctionalization of electronic electronic watches, and can be said to be of great practical value.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram according to the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Semiconductor storage device, 2...Data reading section, 3...Control voltage generation section, 4...
... Start pulse generation section, 5 ... Drive time signal generation section, 6 ... Drive voltage control section, 7 ...
・Drive control oscillation section, 8...N1 gate, 9...
・Sounding body drive unit, 10...control unit, 11...
...pronunciation body.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A semiconductor storage device that stores the pitch and length of a sound as coded numerical values, a data read response that retrieves stored data from the semiconductor storage device, and a frequency that follows the pitch of the sound in the data stored in the semiconductor storage device. means for generating a signal, a driving time signal generating section generating a signal corresponding to the length of a sound in the stored data, inputting a signal from the driving time signal generating section, and inputting the signal from the driving time signal generating section, and transmitting the output signal of the means to the storing data. 1. An electronic timepiece comprising: a gate means for passing a sound for a time corresponding to the length of a sound in data; a sounding element drive circuit for driving a sounding element based on an output signal of the gate means; and the sounding element.